Shitty Boyfriend

Maybe I was the only friend who would talk to you about him. 

You would call me in the afternoons from parking lots.

I would have talked to you about literally anything

and I would have told you again that you are so great,

that every decision you made is so great, including dating

your shitty boyfriend. Your voice rang toward me

over the phone: it was like living out in the country

near the Illinois river, and the sound of a train passing

or a gunshot would make the birds rise from their seats

and applaud. It was easy to imagine, then, what drowning

in that river would sound like. Occasionally I think I hear something 

in the alley behind my apartment. Maybe it’s just the wind.